The daughter of an engineer, Liselotte Herrmann is born in Berlin on June 23, 1909. After graduating from secondary school, she first goes to work in a chemical plant in Berlin before studying chemistry and biology at the Technical University in Stuttgart and the University of Berlin. Liselotte Herrmann joins the Communist Youth Association of Germany in 1928 and is a member of the Red Student Federation. Because she joins the German Communist Party in November 1931, she is expelled from the Berlin university in July 1933. During this time, Liselotte Herrmann is in contact with the secret military arm of the German Communist Party and works as a nanny in Berlin. In May 1934, she gives birth to her son Walter. Liselotte Herrmann returns to Stuttgart in September 1934, where she works as a stenographer and typist in her father’s engineering office. She establishes contact with the illegal Communist Party, closely cooperating with Stefan Lovasz, the leader of the illegal Communist Party in Württemberg, from late 1934 on. She receives information from Artur Göritz about the secret rearmament program and the production of armaments in the Dornier plant in Friedrichshafen and about the construction of an underground munitions factory near Celle. She passes this material on to an advisor of the Central Committee of the German Communist Party in Switzerland.

Liselotte Herrmann is arrested in December 7, 1935. She remains in pretrial confinement for 19 months. Being separated from her son, who grows up with his grandparents, is particularly hard on her. On June 12, 1937, the ”People’s Court” sentences Liselotte Herrmann to death for ”treason and acts preparatory to high treason.” After being sentenced, Liselotte Herrmann remains in Berlin’s women’s prison for nearly a year before she is brought to the death cell in Plötzensee. There she is murdered together with her friends Stefan Lovasz, Josef Steidle, and Artur Göritz on June 20, 1938.

Hermann Stöhr

Born on January 4, 1898, theologian and political theorist Hermann Stöhr is introduced to the Social Working Group East Berlin by Friedrich Sigmund-Schultze in the 1920s as a returning veteran after World War I. It is here that Stöhr first speaks out in support of ecumenical and pacifist ideals. Stöhr dedicates his studies and his theological initiative to the notion of religious, political, and social reconciliation. For part of the time, he serves as secretary in the office of the International Federation of Reconciliation in Berlin. Hermann Stöhr takes a courageous stance against the National Socialist church policy after 1933, demanding that victims of political persecution be included in the prayers of intercession of the Protestant church and demanding practical solidarity with the Jews. When he is drafted in 1939, he refuses military service, citing his conscience and requesting to be allowed to perform work service instead. Because of this, the Reich Military Court sentences Hermann Stöhr to death on March 16, 1940, as a conscientious objector, and on June 21, 1940, he is murdered in Plötzensee.